“PAPERS PLEASE”: A MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY OF IDENTITY DOCUMENTS

ABSTRACT. This paper argues identity documents (ID) prefigure wearables as artefacts connected with archives. As participants with human practices, they constitute an apparatus that engenders sensibilities about the proper way to participate in society, through the use of socio‐technical systems. The use of these artefacts is necessary to make individuals legible to the state. Refusing them renders us insensible. Through a media archaeology of the history and use of IDs through modern Europe, an understanding emerges of the agential properties of artefacts and their essential role in establishing a social imaginary of the state.